


No Absolution

by Tarlan



Category: The Lords of Discipline
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-27
Updated: 2006-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will, now a reporter in Vietnam, finds a familiar face at a MASH unit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Absolution

**Author's Note:**

> I am assuming that the movie was set in the early-1960's (1964) so this story takes place about eight years later in the last days of the Vietnam war.

The chopper blades scythed through the air only a few feet above his head as he jumped down onto the hard-packed ground. All around him he could see army-fatigue clad individuals charging about, their faces contorted into grimaces as they swarmed around the helicopter. Some were shouting though McLean could not make out the words for they were being drowned out by the pulsing beat of the blades and the roar of the huey's engine. A man grabbed at his arm and McLean lip-read the words and shook his head. No, he wasn't injured. It was someone else's blood that lay thickly upon his own drab clothing. He'd merely hitched a lift on the med-evac huey. The man turned away - no longer interested in him and wanting, instead, to concentrate on the removal of the wounded. He had been squeezed inside with eight injured men and there were two more soldiers strapped to either side of the fuselage, and McLean watched as their stretchers were unbuckled before the swarming mass of people carried them away.

The noise from the helicopter increased. McLean automatically pressed his hands to his ears to deaden the sound as the huey lifted off and banked sharply before heading back towards the front line.

The ensuing silence was almost as deafening, for the noise from the helicopter was still ringing though his ears but, slowly, it eased and new sounds intruded upon his hearing. He looked down the slight rise of the helopad towards the small city of olive green tents below. From his vantage point he could see a blazon of color - white crosses on scarlet backgrounds - that told enemy and ally alike that this was a field hospital. Not that the enemy paid no mind to such conventions.

McLean shouldered his carry-all and trudged down the incline, following a well-trodden path as he trailed behind the efficient teams from the Medical Corps. Another automatic response took over and he pulled the lens cap from the camera hanging round his neck in order to snap off a few shots. He captured the scene of doctors, nurses and orderlies setting up triage, watching dispassionately as they determined the order by which the wounded would be treated. Some were rushed off immediately, their stretcher bearers hurtling through the double doors into the field operating room where surgeons were prepped up and waiting to carve into their still-living flesh.

It looked like chaos but then McLean recognized the order within, how each person seemed to know where they ought to be and what they should be doing. IV's were set up by experienced nurses, and drugs injected through plastic tubing as soldiers cried out or whimpered in their pain. McLean raised the camera again, focusing on the triage doctor whose dirty blond head was bowed over another of the injured. The head whipped round to shout out an order to a nurse hovering near-by, and McLean almost dropped the camera from suddenly numbed fingers.

Their eyes met momentarily, with startled green eyes - dulled by fatigue - sliding away first as John Alexander finished shouting his orders to the nurse hovering above him. McLean could only stand and stare as Alexander moved onto the next wounded soldier. The green eyes would glance back from time to time as if he, too, was attempting to convince himself that the other was not just a figment of an overtired imagination.

With trembling fingers, McLean pushed the lens cap back onto the camera and turned away. He stumbled across a tent line but was caught by a passing orderly before he could land flat on his face. He started to brush off the friendly offer of assistance, knowing these people had far more important patients than one tired war correspondent, but warm gray eyes held him.

"Mess tent is over that way. Why don't you go grab something, and sit down before you **do** fall down."

He mumbled his thanks and carried on in the direction indicated, glancing back only once to catch the anxious green eyes one last time. When he entered the mess tent, McLean sank into a seat in the corner, dropping his carry-all from his shoulder to land with a thump onto the firm ground at his feet. He pulled the camera from around his neck and set it down on the table, and then he sank his head into his hands as he felt the weariness of the past few weeks settle over him.

A coffee was set down in front of him and McLean looked up, crookedly smiling his appreciation as the cook-house orderly nodded once before walking away. The coffee was hot, thick, black and heavily sugared. Not the way he usually liked it but, right this minute, it tasted like heaven. When the orderly approached again, this time he set down a plate laden with creamed potato and beef stew. The aroma drifted up, sending McLean's stomach into spasms as he recalled how long it had been since he had last sat down to eat anything more substantial than a mouthful of dry rations. He tucked in, ignoring the way his stomach flipped uneasily at this unexpected treat. It would settle soon enough and, sure enough, by the time he had plowed his way through half the portion, he was feeling ten times better. The orderly refilled the coffee mug and McLean found a wider smile of appreciation as he started to take greater note of his surroundings.

The tent was large and filled with tables and benches but it was also empty. It occurred to him that the usual occupants would be the people he had seen swarming around the huey... and John Alexander.

John Alexander.

His gut tightened. How long had it been since he had walked out of the military academy in Charleston having decided not to attend the graduation ceremony? Colonel Berrineau, the Bear, had caught up to him by the gate and had offered him the signet ring that he had deliberately left behind with his uniform. He looked down at his finger but there was no ring there for, although he had placed it back onto his finger that day, he had done so only for Colonel Berrineau's sake. Any pride he might have once held for the Carolina Military Institute had been lost during that final year.

 ** _The Ten_**.

The Ten had taken the Institute's Code of Honor and had twisted it around to suit the resentment and sensibilities of the decadent - and white - Deep South families who had sent their sons there to learn discipline. But McLean knew that The Ten would have been nothing if they had not also had the support of the Institute's commanding officer.

 _A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those that do._

General Durrell had lied and cheated to appease the racist attitudes of old families such as the St. Croix. He had reformed The Ten, choosing the cream of the cadets - or, at least, those who would blindly follow his orders for their own gain. He had used them to sort the chaff from the wheat, to wheedle out those new cadets who did not meet his exacting standards, forcing them to resign. Unfortunately, the two cadets that they turned their attention to on that final year had their own reasons for refusing to leave.

Poteete had tried to prove to them all that he **could** be one of them; taking all his courage in his hands and making what was for him an impossible leap. He had fallen to his death, his blood and brains staining the parade ground until the rains washed it away. And then there was Pearce who's only problem was the colour of his skin. In all other respects he was the perfect recruit, but nobody had wanted him there though most had tolerated his presence. The Bear had even gone so far as to order McLean to protect the cadet during his first crucial year, perhaps underestimating the extent of the racial hatred that would be poured upon the Institute's first black cadet.

It was an eye-opener. Until then, McLean had never really considered the inequality that existed between blacks and whites down in the South, but the actions of The Ten drove it home to him. In some ways, it had set him on the path his life had followed. He had started to investigate those differences, highlighting them in a small town newspaper as he became a full time journalist. Other injustices cried out to him and it had seemed a natural move to follow the troops out to Vietnam. He sent back articles that told the truth about what was really happening out here rather than fulfilling the Government's need for good propaganda to reinforce the public's resolve in supporting the war effort.

In the past few years his reports had joined many others in decrying the war, showing the atrocities performed on each side. In his own way he was still upholding the Code of Honor. He didn't lie, he didn't cheat and he did not steal. Instead, it was the Government that was the thief; feeding the people with lies while it stole away the lives of their sons and grandsons. McLean thought about the wounded soldiers he had accompanied to this front line hospital. They had all been kids, brave kids, with many of them younger than he was when he walked away from the Carolina Institute. If he closed his eyes then he could displace their faces, forcing memories of the boys he had known half a decade or more ago into their place.

The image of John Alexander came back to him. Not the older, world-weary face that had looked up from where he was tending to a blood-covered soldier, but the sharp-eyed, cold and arrogant face of a nineteen old boy who had been indoctrinated into The Ten.

McLean pushed away the empty plate and lowered his head onto his forearms. He closed his eyes and let those long ago memories flash across his mind as he sank into deeply needed sleep.

****

Dr. John Alexander stood on the threshold of the mess tent and gazed across at the sleeping man in one corner. The light brown hair was still cut short with almost military precision but the rest had changed from the boy he once knew. He knew he had changed too, that he had lost the gangliness of youth and had filled out a little. Broader shoulders, more muscular... a late bloomer, so his parents had said, having always thought him a little too thin in the past.

He gazed down when he realized he was twiddling with the Institute signet ring that still adorned his finger all these years later. At first he had been proud of it; proud of what it stood for, but once the doors of the Military Institute closed behind him he had started to dwell on what he had done there. At the time it had been easy to brush off the death of Poteete - and the terrible things he had seen done to Pearce - as a necessary evil in order to uphold the Carolina Military Institute's Code of Honor. In truth, he had been so proud to be selected as one of The Ten by Durrell, and he had held such respect for the General, that it had never truly occurred to him that what they were doing was so very wrong.

His first twinge of remorse came when Poteete leaped from the parapet to his death in some misguided notion that he could make the jump. None of them believed he would do it, so positive that the blubbering cadet would back down and resign from the Institute - just as Durrell had wanted. He had tried to assuage his guilt by pushing the blame firmly onto the unfortunate boy's shoulders. Telling himself that it was not his fault that Poteete had been as stupid as he was useless. Instead he had bottled up the guilt, locking it firmly behind a glacial mask of arrogance and disinterest while The Ten continued with their sworn duty to keep the unwanted element from the ranks of the Institute.

But it had tainted him. It had haunted his dreams but, at the time, he couldn't afford to let the others know how deeply it had affected him. What if they had turned on him? What if they had punished him for betraying the Code of The Ten? How would he have explained to his father why he had been forced to walk the path of shame? Instead he had taken each day as it came, counting the number left before Graduation - and freedom from the oppression of being part of The Ten.

Coward.

He looked at the markings on the ring. He had started by wearing it in pride but now it was a constant reminder of his own former arrogance and cowardice. He wore it in memory of Poteete and Pearce, both of whom had shown more bravery than anyone had ever expected of them. Alexander shuddered as he recalled the sadistic acts he and the others had perpetrated upon both boys. Becoming a doctor - like his father - had been his way of trying to atone for those acts of cruelty, and enlisting into a front line medical unit in Vietnam had been his way of proving that he wasn't really a coward.

He was not certain if his father was proud or shocked when he declared his intention to enlist. His father had always assumed that he would be joining the family practice straight after gaining his qualifications. As a student and then a qualified doctor, he could have been excused enlistment from service. He thought of his domineering father.

How would you feel if I ever told you I enlisted because I was sick of being a coward? That I was disgusted by the way you treated others just because their skin wasn't white, or their family too poor? Blacks and white trash. You hated them all, even compromising on your Oath as a doctor and giving them inferior drugs and treatment when they were ailing.

He sighed gently. Enlisting had been a different form of cowardice. He had spent his entire life beneath his father's shadow, subjugated to his will and his prejudices. However, rather than confront him over his views, Alexander had chosen to leave with the words unsaid.

Coward.

He had spent his first year in-country diving for cover whenever he heard the tell-tale sound of incoming fire. He recalled working on soldiers while the lights flickered ominously and bombs rained down beyond the tent flaps of the makeshift surgical room. His task had been simple enough, to do enough to keep a soldier alive so he could be evacuated to the medical units situated further behind the lines. That year had proved to him that there were many forms of cowardice. Bravery under fire, and a willingness to put his life on the line to save another had only proved he was not a total coward. Nonetheless, the true depth of his cowardice stemmed from his inability to stand up to his domineering, and racially prejudiced, father.

"Doc?"

Alexander accepted the mug of coffee, gratefully, and walked slowly over to the corner table. He had been rotated out from the front line well over a year ago; leaving someone fresh to take his position. Two years in-country had taken any remaining arrogance from him and he hoped that, by the time this war was over, he might leave here a purged and decent man, and he might even have discovered a well-spring of bravery within him that would allow him to stand up to his father.

Still, until this moment, he had been unaware that he had also been looking for absolution for the crimes he had perpetrated as part of The Ten, but he had firmly believed there was no one who could grant him that.

Poteete was dead; his brains splattered across the parade ground, and Pearce was dead, a casualty of this war in Vietnam. He'd had nothing to do with the trial and subsequent dismissal of McLean's roommate Dante Pignetti, and he had not been the only one to issue demerits to McLean and his fellow room mates. But even if he had then it had made little difference. Pignetti had returned after the summer to complete the last semester in order to graduate, and the others had retained enough merits to graduate alongside the rest of the class even though McLean had not attended the actual ceremony.

Of course, there had been little chance of Tradd St. Croix failing to retain sufficient merits, and Alexander always wondered if McLean had ever discovered Tradd's part in the whole sordid affair. McLean and St. Croix were supposed to have been the best of friends--and some said that they had been far more than that--but Tradd had been the leader of The Ten. He had been the mastermind behind the worst of the atrocities against Pearce and Poteete, and then against his own room-mates. It was he who had set up Pignetti--knowing Pig would siphon gas from McLean's car when his own ran out - and it was he who had played defense openly and prosecutor covertly to ensure Pignetti was banished for his supposed crime of stealing.

Alexander quietly pulled out the chair opposite McLean and sat down. He closed his eyes and tried not to let the old memory of Poteete's screaming, falling body resurface. It had taken many years before that nightmare faded, but he knew how easy it was for reminders from the past to make that image fresh once more. He was tired. Tired of his memories, tired of carrying the heavy burden of his guilt, and tired of this unrelenting war. He let his head drop onto his own arms and he drifted off into an exhausted sleep as he waited for McLean to awaken.

****

McLean opened heavy eyes, groaning softly as his stiff and abused muscles complained. With a start he realized that he was no longer alone and he focused on the blond head pillowed on forearms opposite. Deep lines of fatigue were etched into the still-youthful face, the lips slightly parted while pale lashes flickered over dreaming eyes. Although Alexander had removed his scrubs and cleaned up, McLean could see tiny smears of blood that he had missed in his haste.

McLean took in the man sleeping uneasily before him, recalling the boyish frame from a time when they had both been on the cusp of manhood. Alexander was a little less lean, his shoulders broader, hands not so delicate though still less chunky than his own. The blond hair was far longer than had been allowed at the Institute, and one strand fell across his face. He looked different in sleep from the hard-faced cadet that McLean could still recall. The twist of arrogance was missing from the slightly parted lips and he had a shadow of dark blond bristles that had not been part of McLean's memory.

McLean glanced around the mess tent and noticed that they were not alone, and that a different orderly was serving up food and coffee to an line of tired people. He looked at his watch and was shocked to see that he had slept almost six hours. As he wondered why no one had awoken him, another glance around made him notice that Alexander was not the only person asleep with a long-cold mug of coffee within easy stretch of their fingers. Momentarily, it pained him to see people slumped over tables in exhaustion but he realized that they could have gone to their bunks. They had chosen to be there and so, by some silent rule, no one disturbed them.

McLean looked back at Alexander.

Would he have chosen to be here if not for me?

Alexander looked uncomfortable, with his neck twisted at an angle that would leave him stiff and sore. Despite everything that had happened between them in the past, McLean felt a twinge of compassion and he reached across to shake one shoulder. He pulled back his hand as Alexander startled awake, the bloodshot green eyes unfocused - in confusion - as he tried to take in his surroundings. Eventually, his green-eyed gaze fell on McLean and he sat up straight. The uneasy but boyish innocence disappeared behind the arrogant, glacial mask that McLean remembered so well and, for one moment, the old resentment reared its ugly head, but then those eyes softened with the ice melting like a spring thaw.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep. Just wanted to speak to you before you... disappeared."

McLean kept his expression hard and uncompromising as he stared across at his old adversary. He waited... and waited... and thought that, maybe, Alexander had changed his mind, but then the other man began to talk.

"I never meant for any of it to happen. It was like... like riding a rollercoaster. Once you got on the ride you were stuck 'til it came to the end. None of us thought Poteete would jump. We all thought he'd..."

"You thought he'd chicken out, and walk away from the Institute with his tail between his legs. You didn't want white trash polluting the precious academy. You didn't want sniveling cowards who cried for their mama each night and wet their pants when they were scared."

Alexander looked away and that galled McLean.

"You look at me, Alexander. If you're looking to me for forgiveness then tough. I haven't got it in me just yet."

Alexander gave a wry smile.

"No. I didn't think you could, or even that you should forgive me.. least not so easily. I don't deserve easy. I just wanted you to know that I left that arrogant, sadistic boy back in the institute... along with the rest of my naiveté. That's all."

McLean grimaced, knowing he had left a good chunk of his own naiveté in that same place. He realized how easy he could have fallen into being one of The Ten had circumstances been different--just like Tradd and Alexander. They had all been impressionable youths at the time. He sighed heavily.

"I suppose we were all different people then... just naive boys."

Alexander's eyes lost some of their dullness, brightening at this small concession to their past.

"Perhaps we could start afresh... as the people we are now?"

He held out his hand and McLean looked at it for a moment, seeing both strength and fragility in the surgeon's fingers.

"No absolution."

"No. But maybe one day?"

McLean smiled as he took the hand in his own. "Maybe."

A ghost of a smile melted the last of the iciness from Alexander's face allowing McLean to see a little of the true man beneath; a man he would like to get to know. As if reading his thoughts, Alexander spoke up once more.

"My father sent me a fine bottle of whiskey. Got it in my tent. Would you care to join me?"

McLean grinned as some of the shadows of the past left his own soul. Perhaps he was not ready to offer absolution to Alexander because he had yet to forgive himself for having once been as naive. But perhaps, together, they might be able to work on finding forgiveness for both of them.

THE END


End file.
